Haha. You should trademark it.

Indeed but the time for FAQ is over. Time for insanity of repeating mistakes as long as the loud voices are heard is here.

Maybe instead of CAPTCA there's a quiz where you can't copy answers or make it easy for bots based on PCGW content.

My 2 cents.

Sure, it's not our job to help other users, but I'd call willingness to help and some patience towards newbies a sign of a nice community. At the same time it's also not our job to get together and turn a thread into a mocking and derision contest.

Not that I'm completely without a fault in that regard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Seconded
Your point 'people are shitposting'
Your solution 'I don't have one, can't you find one?'
My solution 'Don't have a community'
My second solution because naturally that one is crap 'don't have such a polarized community, by equalizing their digital citizenry'
How this is accomplished 'Clear terms between the community and their representatives (GOG) about what is expected and can be allowed as guided by the community. Legal pressure against the steam monopsony; naming and shaming of developers 'based on evidence' on their stance towards using multiplayer as a front for DRM as a forum rule.'.

The problem underpinning all this is the fact we are being treated as if our coin is not the same coin of the realm; and as consumers we have rights unenforceable by the current structures we are under. Naturally that results in a vehement state and without addressing the acetic state you will always result in a vitriolic one.
Your like asking to raise a liquids Ph without reducing the amount of acidic concentration by any method achievable through either dilution or bassification.
Sure lets try adding more acid ;)

Speaking of positiveness...

The fact that 7 years ago I could host a positive yet humouristically giveaway (which I also made an error when it came to the "international O date" of it) when the climate here was different says a lot.

If I hosted one of those again I would not only be lynched by the sensitive community here, the mods would sorely auto-bahn me pretty fast.

I'm tempted to ask retrospectively if the phrase "evolution subjugates strong emotions" was ever relevant...

I know, and I also don't like when someone is starting with demanding tone and with not especially polite vocabulary. But aside from that - I also always belive that it's not the reason to lower our level and answer on such topics to antagonize and give excuse to author to drag it further - much better would be just ignoring it and letting it be forgotten. Plus, it's just my personal belief, I really think that the most respectful approach is to keep standard high even when facing the very rude and low standard from someone else. True, but it's also not our job to give "life" to such topics with adding more negative replies and in fact giving fuel to drag the topic into unending series of nastiness. Plus I'm always assuming that there can be that single, rare situation when someone would normally not write such topic, but in anger he/she did, and it would take only short reply (if someone wishes to help) or ignore it, to let this person "calm down" and make something more sensible (e.g. contact with support).

Well, after watching Robot Chicken I don't trust unicorns anymore ;) But jokes aside - this forum (as mentioned in this topic) a couple of years ago didn't had such issues (or at least not in such magnitued) as it has nowadays. Plus I know some forums where I participated and where this toxic atmosphere never happened - like Sonic Retro (they may exaggerate in opposite way, but it's for me an example that you can have some normal atmosphere on forum). Yes, I know that those are usually more niche forums, but I'm still concerned about the GOG forum, since after facebook literally killed plenty of forums, this one is still one of those which is generally alive and I can find there people who are sharing the same passion and appreciate plenty of titles which are not saying anything to plenty of people "outside'. Can't think about any other place than GOG's forum to "go", truth be told.

Oh yes, I absolutely agree :) I really like that approach and must say, that it was one of the (multiple) reasons why I've decided to start this topic

1.Perhaps, but stil it's the characteristic of forum/internet, that I don't see all pieces of puzzle and I don't know if someneone after many unsuccessfull attempts to make something work suddenly written, in rage, not especially adequate topic. And even if it is indeed not worth to help - hey, you've got 100% right to think in this way about any topic - it's much better to ignore it. No more fuel = such topics are dying and other newcomers will see that it simply doesn't pay to make it.

2.Well, I guess that we can't (as users) do much about those technical/selling aspects, but still it's no use to gather and bash someone with basing on guesses only.

3.Sure, but then - much better to ignore it and don't add fuel. I'm not asking anybody to serve as free help, it's up to every user.

The fact is that the climate was different, not more or less "toxic" (if it ever was a good word). Forums have always had a problem with inept/puerile/aggressive people and spam (believe me, I've been a mod myself).

That said, let's not forget that there are more and more people on the Internet, and the biggest difference is the inconsistent (or lack of) moderation (not only on gaming forums) and that we allow this behaviour to spread like wildfire. As I see it, those that get the most sarcastic answers thrown at them are those that are rude, lazy, demanding, or intentionally tries to tear up a war without being sincere.

I agree, we never solve anything by outright calling someone an idiot/stupid. But very, very few here does that, and a major problem is that many can't handle humour and different views, and thinks the worst. In my mind there's never a bad thing to give constructive criticism and some just wants to take it in an aggressive puerile fashion (like many that creates those "goodbye GOG"-threads).

The worst cases of "toxicity" here today is biased and lack of consistent/good moderation, and that goes for the rest of the world in general.

First exemple is from Ashlee chat, second is from Elcook chat. Chronologically the other way round. But yeah, gog is deeply rotten under the surface, with hypocrisy concerning not only the interface strategies (galaxy optional but, hm, strongly advised) but also the code-of-conduct (hate speech makes gog look bad, so try to be subtle about it wink wink). It's a shit site, if you look beyond offline gaming and quality customer support (which, for many, is all that matters after all). The toxicity is not about the little tears in the carpet but about what's underneath.

But anyway, we live in a world where only the surface matters. Plausible deniability, self-narration, etc. So all is fine and dandy. It would only get inconvenient if we couldn't play pretend anymore.

Not only that. There are some people on the Internet who act like self entitled brats thinking that they are entitled to certain things and they demand that it happens. Like if they are having issues with a modern game and it isn't working for them they make an impossible demand like fix this game in 24hrs or I will issue a refund.

It looks to me like an appeal to have less of he describes. Speaking as another user, I kind of agree with him; it would be nice to see less of people jumping straight to hostility.

This is true.

That said, there is also no requirement for any given user to contribute to what the OP describes.

My opinion on that is also that much of the recent PC gaming userbase consists of younger people who grew up playing consoles. Where you only had to insert a cartridge and voilá: game running. I grew up having to wait 5 minutes for a tape to load, tapes not loading, floppies broken, having to meddle with CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files in order to free memory for certain games, etc. This kind of stuff was terrible, but it helped us acquire certain tech skill and - most important of all - the virtue of patience. Sometimes a game wouldn't run on a certain PC config and there was nothing you could do about it. I still remember some buddies offering me the games they had bought but which they could not run on their PCs (not enough EMS, RAM, VGA display, etc. No-one would cry, insult the store owners or whatever. You just accepted the bad stuff and moved on. There were better things to do with your life than "crying" about videogames.

Enters the 21st century, with its global culture of instant gratification, social media narcissism, net anonymity, etc etc... and you get a very nasty shit-cocktail of social toxicity.

People tend to be quite passionate (to put it nicely) here. It can often lead to some fiery replies, you tie that up with a lot of lost new users coming in with questions, a few trolls and little to no moderation or general input from staff/mods and you'll get a more toxic environment. You can see it across many different forums that have been on the decline or forgotten about in favour of social media.

Best thing that be can done is for people to be more welcoming and mindful, this place won't grow if it's a closed off cicle

Is this relevant to the GoG enviroment?
most discussions i notice here are nowhere near an unmodded steam group or steam discussion page for that matter.
personally i learned to use the 'red' button these days concerning steam, even for messages that are seemingly aimed at angering others while not moving over the red stripe

Toxicallity seems to be just another outing of boredomn

Yeah Me too. I also grew up with Floppy Disks and having the meddle with CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT and IRQs as well. Yeah it does. They are so used to console games that where you just inserted or download and install the media and it worked. Also I grew up with the NES which could be finicky at times especially the sideloader. Yeah tech has played a huge part in toxicity.

Ok, but it’s not going to happen. First off it’s the internet, and secondly what one person feels is hostility is just abruptness. As with any of these things, how to quantify it. Should we only allow posts which start with several lines of preamble, appreciation and flattery just to avoid being seen as hostile?